The present invention relates generally to computerized information retrieval devices or systems, and more specifically to techniques for using an electronic dictionary in connection with a body of electronically encoded text.
Electronically encoded dictionaries and the like have become commonplace, and find applicability both in conjunction with word processing programs and as a stand-alone reference works. However, current electronic dictionaries are typically derived from a printed dictionary and display the information in the same format. When information from the dictionary is requested, as for example, by selecting a word in the text, all the information for that word is presented. If the word has more than one syntactic category or is otherwise ambiguous, the user can determine which of the displayed information is relevant. Thus, the only advantage of the use of the electronic dictionary over a use of a printed dictionary is that the lookup is faster and the results can be displayed on the same screen that displays the text.